The Everlasting Project- the Island

As seen in a previous post, I started making a replacement island for the house in July 2014. That's really hard for me to admit because it was officially finished in February 2017! I started it and then found out I was pregnant, so the project started taking a lot longer to make then. The idea was to make something that could hold small appliances as well as house a larger beer fridge for eric and the boys. I made all the cabinets from scratch and used 3/4" plywood so as to not make it too heavy. Then I found some nice wood drawers at the restore for $5 each for the cabinet part, and I bought used cabinet doors for it, too. What helped make this project take so long were the cabinet doors. I started off making them only to be very disappointed with them they were going to be shaker style and I worked really hard on them, but they were ugly and very imperfect. So, I resorted to buying them and sized them down to fit. My aunt had told me about wood polish which I used in lieu of polyurethane. I thought I might make the counter top but then decided against it and bought a pre-fab butcher block countertop from menards.

Here are mid-way pics which include the shaker styled doors that I scrapped.

And here is the finished product (as you can see, the rest of the house was in shambles because we just had the addition put on and we were going to install the new carpeting next).

Diaper cake- October 2017

A gal at work was pregnant with her first baby and it was a girl! I had bought a lot of diapers when they were on sale and kept them for baby shower gifts. I like these diapers SO much. They are super absorbent, don't leak, rarely have we had blow-outs or diaper rash AND they are compostable!!! (If you are looking for a super diaper you should buy these- they are called Naty Naturals and they are made in Sweden.)

Anyway, this cake used about 1.5 bags of diapers. I used a paper towel roll/dowel in the center and white ribbon to hold it all together before using the decorative stuff over the top.

Newest obsession- girths/cinches!

My trainer recently told me to get a mohair girth because the one I have is a mohair blend and it doesn't perform the same as a pure mohair girth would. So I started thinking cheaply and thought, I bet I could make one for less? Though that might be right after awhile, it cost me much more at first because I made the loom first.

All wood and loom supplies were bought at Menards and all the mohair was bought from u-braidit.com, as were the instructions on how to make the girth/cinch. I also was referred by a friend to watch some YouTube videos to help, too.

Here they are, in order of production.

Here you can see the loom and the first girth I made with Abiquiu blue and natural colored rope. It's 48" and it looks incredible on my grey Arabian mare, Juliana.

This next girth is 46" because I thought it might fit Juliana a bit better than the 48". I ended up removing the natural colored outline around the half diamonds and I like it a lot better. This is made of sandstone and natural colored yarn/rope and the brown is sport weight alpaca yarn that I bought from a friend who raises alpacas. When I took home the yarn I realized it was way too fine so I used 2 strands of the 2ply (to ultimately make it 4ply) and I feel better about it. I made sure not to use it in areas where it needed to provide structure or support and instead used it for decorative accents.

This last girth is made with natural, royal blue and ristra red. I made this for one of my trainers as a thank you present. It was made to match her Arabian mare's blue and red bosal/mecate. It's a 32" cinch with a roller buckle on one end.